It is quite a daunting task to assess the performance of someone like John Williams. Certainly one of the finest and most famous living classical guitarists in the world, he seems something of a colossus of the instrument. Yet the manner he exuded as he entered the stage of St. George’s was of understated familiarity.

In a recent interview, BBC Radio 3 Controller Roger Wright was asked "What music would you want played at your funeral?" His reply: "Spanish guitar music, because I wouldn’t be there to hear it. If you ask my colleagues they’d say Spanish guitar music is one of my blind spots."Full marks to Wright for laying his cards on the table, perhaps. But how common, how deep-seated are such sentiments in the British classical music community?